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Nothing to shield her from the weight of my gaze.
Watching her cleavage rise as she raged had made my chest coil with barely leashed hunger. I hid it well, but I wanted to rip herdress from her body, leave her naked and trembling—not just from desire, but from knowing she belongs to me.
I want to take that fury in her eyes and turn it into something raw, something desperate.
Watch them roll back as she begs me to take her.
The sheer lace over her legs did nothing to deter my imagination, either. I couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it would be to leave my chair and rip apart the delicate fabric. Her whimpers…how loud her moans would be as she begged me to touch her.
The spark in her eyes, in her stance.
“Hell.” I drag a hand over my face. It was almost irresistible—the urge to bend her defiance to my will until she was raw and needy, ready to take everything with a single word on her lips. My name.
My cock twitches in my pants, and I move my hips forward to ease the discomfort.
“Are you rethinking your decision? Because I can think of other ways—” Leo holds his tongue when I open my eyes, silencing him without saying anything. He clears his throat. “You know what? I’ll get ahead on plan B.” He stands up. “What about the accountant? What do you plan to do about him?”
My father’s personal accountant. He’d been stealing money for two years and funneling it into offshore accounts for Marco Ricci. My guess is that’s how the bastard managed to go underground.
Unfortunately for the accountant, he did a shitty job of covering his tracks and made the stupid decision to not follow Ricci underground.
I wave Leo off. “I’ll see to it.”
“Sure,” he replies, picking at an invisible piece of lint on his shirt before he walks out of my office.
I wait a beat before picking up my phone. “Marge,” I say to my secretary, a sixty-year-old woman who used to work for my father. One of the few people my father trusted who didn’t betray him. “Tell Alex I need to see him, will you?”
“Sure. Would you like me to have him personally escorted?” she asks, letting it slip that she knows something is about to happen.
That’s why my father trusted her. She knows what goes on behind closed doors but minds her business well.
“Yes, Marge.” I smile. “Thank you.”
Ten minutes later, the door opens, and Alex walks in, followed by a security guard. “Thank you,” I tell the guard. “You can go.”
The door closes again. I inhale, taking a good look at him. Alex Hart. A man small enough that he should’ve learned how to be timid.
“Alex.” I point to the chair Leo vacated. “Please sit.”
Fear. It slashes through his face and freezes him on the spot. Well, I’ll give him one. He certainly knows when he’s walked into a trap.
“I-I…” he stutters. “He forced me. He said that if I didn’t do it, he was going to—he was going—” He rubs the back of his neck as his gaze darts around the office.
He was going to…?
I know he doesn’t have a family or a dependent, so Alex Hart’s motivation was pure greed. Not that it would’ve stopped me either way.
“Sit,” I say, sternly this time.
He swallows thickly as he nods, then drags his feet all the way to the chair. I settle back into my seat, eyes never leaving him. Time stretches between us. I wait, watching him dig his grave in fear. It’ll be easier for me to bury him in it.
He swallows again, the sound loud in the otherwise silent room. “Th-thank you,” he whispers, barely audible, his voice thick with terror.
“How much did you steal for Marco Ricci?” I ask. “No, forget that.” I shake my head. “Tell me something better. Where is he?”
Alex’s eyes widen, and he flinches back into his seat, his voice a desperate squeak. “I-I don’t know! I swear, I don’t know!” His hands twist together, his knuckles white, and his gaze darts frantically across the room as if the answer is written on the walls. “We only spoke once. The other times, he gave me the order through?—”
He cuts himself off, realizing he’s said too much. But I know more now.